AI and Intellectual Equality (4): Access Becomes Universal, Power Concentrates
TL;DR AI applications are spreading rapidly: ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months, Copilot is embedded in editors, and image models let non-designers create visual work. At the same time, the power to build and govern AI is concentrating in a few companies. Consumers gain unprecedented access, while producers gain unprecedented control. You receive the freedom to use AI, but surrender much of the freedom to define it. A young person in rural Africa can now use a phone to receive near world-class tutoring from a GPT-4-level model. In use, the experience can resemble that of a Silicon Valley engineer: the same interface and the same model. From the consumer side, this is an extraordinary democratization of knowledge. ...